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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Birthday Card from a Prototype Cut

Sometimes I design an image and want to do a quick test cut just to see if my machine will be able to produce a clean cut. I usually use some relatively heavy cardstock for these test cuts. I might use a color that I am not particularly fond of or a piece of patterned paper that would go in my "ugly pile" when sorting out the craft room.

When the cut works out well, I have these random, slightly odd blanks sitting around, waiting to be recycled or finished and embellished. This bright pink cut was one of the samples I tried for the interlocking petal design that I drew in the Silhouette Studio program.

I like to make designs that are actually cut into a card front for a lace doily effect. I have done this with Cricut images by using the "hide selected contour" feature to eliminate the outer line of some medallion cuts. For my test of this design, I cut some of the cards in pink and some in green and started trying different variations by eliminating rows of cuts or adding layers.

There was some Card Candi sitting on my table - it was a variety of all
sorts of pieces that my friend Enfys (Going Buggy) brought for me when we met up in Germany last January. I
pulled out some of the pale pink pieces and started making an
alternating pattern around the image. I wanted to use the dark pink
pieces in the alternating spots and then I realized that I didn't have
enough pieces. So I dug through and found the periwinkle color to
alternate with the dark pink.

I had cut the bright pink flower shape from the extra side piece of the 12 x 12 cardstock I used for the sample cuts. I thought is was too bright so I tried two other possiblities - the third one (the pale pink) looked like the best option to me. I wanted to coordinate with the circle sentiment which is also from Craftwork cards (the source of the Card Candi paper "brads').

I like the way the open fronts look on cards but it can be tricky to add the inside sentiment with so many holes in the card front. I decided to create some additional layers. At this point, I wasn't quite sure if I'd adhere them to the inside of the card or to the back of the card front.

I decided that the large shadow of the inset cut design would look best on the right hand inside panel of the card. In order to place it correctly, I added the adhesive and lined it up behind the cut out pattern on the card front. Then I simply closed the card to pick up the sticky circle which was now properly aligned on the inner panel.

I designed another "blackout" ring to fill the center section of cut out shapes. At first I thought I might adhere it inside the card front but it would have been very fiddly with such a small outline area to add the adhesive. I ended up repeating the procedure for the large background piece and aligned the cut and folded the card back over again to layer it on the white piece.

Now the inside was nearly finished, I just needed to add a sentiment. I pulled out an appropriate one and punched a 1 1/2 inch circle from the same pale pink cardstock that I used on the front of the card to mat the sentiment.

After the card was complete, I realized that the inner sentiment was in silver and the outer one in gold (next time I'll try to make sure they are the same...).

I used the same procedure once more, adding adhesive and centering the sentiment disc on the card front - then folding the back over to pick it up in the proper position.

Here is the finished inside of the card.

I adhered the pink flower section directly to the card top.

Then I matted the front sentiment on another punched circle from the white Gemstone Core'dinations cardstock and used foam dots to raise it up a bit.

I was lucky to be able to find cardstock that coordinated pretty well with the Card Candi and sentiment pieces. The pearlized periwinkle color is from an American Crafts specialty pack of pearl finish cardstock and has an alligator texture.

After doing all of these extra layers and adding the Card Candi there is just one problem. I still am not very fond of the minty green color - which is why I chose to use it for the "test cut" in the first place!

Ha! So funny - minty green is my go-to color for test cuts, too. I'm not so fond of it & it is usually in my "ugly pile." Despite that, your card came out lovely and I'm sure someone would be thrilled to receive it. Karen L 1020 at gmail dot com

So cute! This card looks very similar with the costly hand-made cards sold at department stores. Can't help but be curious with your cutting machine. What specific tool do you use? And where did you buy it?

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Hello and thanks for visiting my blog. My name is Diane and I blog about digital die cutting, photography, papercrafts, cardmaking, scrapbooking, travel and other creative topics that I find interesting.

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